[3.5] Justification of loot on animals

[ShadeBlade0]

I'm running a campaign where I'm focusing heavily on realism. There is an encounter with an animal (technically a magical beast, but it has very little intelligence). I obviously still want to provide loot for the encounter, but what are some justifications for doing so? Saying "You check this magic leopard's pockets and find 300gp." will ruin the immersion I'm going for.

Any ideas?

[InvisibleBison]

Does the treasure have to be part of this encounter? What I would normally do in this sort of situation is have this encounter have no treasure and later encounters have extra treasure to make up for it.

If it has to be part of this encounter, you could say that it killed someone with treasure and dragged them back to its lair. Alternatively, either the body of the creature or something it's killed recently is valuable and can be sold for however much gold is appropriate.

[el minster]

something in it's stomach which it had eaten, expensive furs

[Jack_McSnatch]

Furs are generally pretty valuable, even today. If one of your players has survival as a skill, and can skin it cleanly, they could get a good amount. It'd be up to you to decide, but to give some context, I live in a very pro-hunting town, and have seen good pelts go for $300.

[reddir]

In addition to furs, teeth and claws might be valuable.

And as a magical beast, maybe it has some specific organ(s) which might have use for an alchemist and therefore be worth something?

[el minster]

This could be a whole new use for the survival skill

[Techwarrior]

There's an optional rule that allows strange and rare items to function as the XP portion for the crafting if magical items. Maybe this beast has magic in the blood.

[darkdragoon]

Magical beasts are generally more intelligent, have habits etc. They may recognize that the shiny thing is somehow valuable even if they can't do their best Gato impression.

[hamishspence]

Some magical beasts are smart enough to wear the items. Giant eagles wearing rings is not unheard of, for example.

[Silly Name]

If it has a lair/den close by, the players could find some loot on the corpses of previous victims of the beast. There might be coins and valuable items scattered among the bones of the dead.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by InvisibleBison
…you could say that it killed someone with treasure and dragged them back to its lair.


Originally Posted by Silly Name
If it has a lair/den close by, the players could find some loot on the corpses of previous victims of the beast. There might be coins and valuable items scattered among the bones of the dead.

These are what I would suggest. Previous victims can have whatever you like in terms of treasure, although I usually make sure that they were individually of a low enough level for the monster(s) to have taken them.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Magical beasts are generally more intelligent, have habits etc. They may recognize that the shiny thing is somehow valuable even if they can't do their best Gato impression.Not sure what you're referencing here.

They call me Gato
I have metal joints
If you can beat me up
You'll earn 15 points

Oh, no, I have lost
And it seems you've won
Here are your 15 points
Now wasn't that fun? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LRoIy_9cU8)

[Asmotherion]

Well, depends on the type of animal.

It could have some facination with shinny items, and keep loot in it's nest (see crows) or it's hide could be valuable when sold (most hides can make leather of variable qualities, as well as parchement. Snakes, Crocodiles and other reptiles make some of the most expensive, wile Foxes and Bears are not far behind). Could also have some gourmet meat (deer and other wild game) or eggs (caviar is practically Sturgeon fish eggs) that sells for a good price, or it's teeth/nails be valuable for artists to work with (see ivory). It could even have some expensive feathers in it's plumage, that can be sold to make nice quills (Eagles, Peacocks).

[Psyren]

Does the treasure have to be part of this encounter? What I would normally do in this sort of situation is have this encounter have no treasure and later encounters have extra treasure to make up for it.

If it has to be part of this encounter, you could say that it killed someone with treasure and dragged them back to its lair. Alternatively, either the body of the creature or something it's killed recently is valuable and can be sold for however much gold is appropriate.

This, and lets you avoid any immersion-breaking digging through the leopard's intestines / "pockets".

[Wise Weasel]

1.In and around the Lair, or really any place the animal best hangs out. Anyone could have dropped anything or any victim could have had anything on them. Rings and daggers are prefect for this, and a jeweled dagger can cost a lot.

2.On the animal beast. At some time in the past they were charmed or controlled or or captured or whatever, so they have a gold collar or a jeweled saddle or such. Also count things stuck in the hide of the beast animal, like say a jeweled dagger or a amulet on it's teeth or paw.

3.Just add in the amount of the beast animal treasure at some other place. If you wanted the beast to have 500 go of loot, just give that loot to the next goblin. Also, you can always toss in a mini encounter where the characters find a sack hanging from a high tree branch or find a small treasure chest.

[Thurbane]

I don't know if this is a 1E carry over in my group, but we nearly always cut monsters open and check for loot in the gut.

I guess the rationale is they swallowed a sentient being wearing magic items/valuable jewellery etc. and it hasn't digested yet...

External links:

16 Weirdest Things a Shark Has Swallowed (https://www.bustle.com/articles/35742-16-weirdest-things-ever-found-inside-a-sharks-stomach) FULL SUIT OF ARMOR!

[Malphegor]

I always tend to assume gold isn’t just gold but misc valuables, so you’re likely extracting samples, collecting teeth to make necklaces, etc to harvest animals. Deeper harvesting requires a Survival check but baseline surface checking for lootable materials to hack off is presumably included in loot

[Seto]

Not sure what you're referencing here.

They call me Gato
I have metal joints
If you can beat me up
You'll earn 15 points

Oh, no, I have lost
And it seems you've won
Here are your 15 points
Now wasn't that fun? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LRoIy_9cU8)

Yes!
Simply, yes.

[King of Nowhere]

i once had a monster with a magic sword stuck in it. a severed hand was still gripping the sword hilt.

the sword had vampiric regeneration. the justification was, an adventurer skewered the beast with the sword, just as the beast killed the adventurer. at this point the sword was left without someone wielding it, and the magic interpreted the monster as its owner, and healed it, sealing the sword inside the wound. the healing magic of the sword subsequently kept the monster alive despite having a sword piercing through its torso.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Wise Weasel
At some time in the past they were charmed or controlled or or captured or whatever, so they have a gold collar or a jeweled saddle or such.

This is a great idea, worth using if I get the chance.

[tyckspoon]

In addition to furs, teeth and claws might be valuable.

And as a magical beast, maybe it has some specific organ(s) which might have use for an alchemist and therefore be worth something?

Although harvesting the creature for potentially salable bits has a long tradition in D&D, this is something you might want to be careful about encouraging - it's the first step to teaching your players to strip literally everything for anything that might be valuable. Mural on the wall uses semi-precious stones for decoration? Pry those out. Magical trap used an adamantine inlay to power its fireball circuit? Assuming you can't remove the trap whole and functional, better strip that out. Portal to hell is built inside of an archway with a horrible frieze depicting the torments of the damned? Art object, somebody's gonna pay good money for that.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does make for a kind of different game, and you might not want to go down this route if you want your players to be keeping their focus on 'how do we advance this adventure' and less on 'how can we maximize the amount of money we make from this.' Also if you don't want to have your mental image of your party be a bunch of weirdos wandering around with a fantasy thrift shop's worth of random items (still-bloody pelts because they never stopped to clean and tan them mixed in with questionably-magical organs nestled next to the Jeweled Eyes of the Temple of Offler all sitting on top of a slate depicting the origin myths of an ancient lost civilization, don't worry those ichor stains will wash right off..)

Personally, I'd go with 'the animal doesn't have any treasure, move the share for that encounter to another one.' Eventually you'll want to have the party deal with a dragon or have several fights with class-leveled enemies or something else that has a greater-than-standard allotment of treasure, which can average out the overall income from encounters that don't have any significant loot attached.

[Batcathat]

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does make for a kind of different game, and you might not want to go down this route if you want your players to be keeping their focus on 'how do we advance this adventure' and less on 'how can we maximize the amount of money we make from this.' Also if you don't want to have your mental image of your party be a bunch of weirdos wandering around with a fantasy thrift shop's worth of random items (still-bloody pelts because they never stopped to clean and tan them mixed in with questionably-magical organs nestled next to the Jeweled Eyes of the Temple of Offler all sitting on top of a slate depicting the origin myths of an ancient lost civilization, don't worry those ichor stains will wash right off...

Just have a powerful NPC in a fedora show up and (literally) whip the party's asses, explaining that that stuff belongs in a museum.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by tyckspoon
This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does make for a kind of different game, and you might not want to go down this route if you want your players to be keeping their focus on 'how do we advance this adventure' and less on 'how can we maximize the amount of money we make from this.'

I've found that players who are focused on maximizing money from the game will usually pursue that end no matter what the DM does. No matter how the encounters are designed or how the treasure is allocated, they'll keep at it and leave the story to someone else.

[Psyren]

They call me Gato
I have metal joints
If you can beat me up
You'll earn 15 points

Oh, no, I have lost
And it seems you've won
Here are your 15 points
Now wasn't that fun? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LRoIy_9cU8)

Whelp, there's another channel in my subscription list.


I've found that players who are focused on maximizing money from the game will usually pursue that end no matter what the DM does. No matter how the encounters are designed or how the treasure is allocated, they'll keep at it and leave the story to someone else.

All the more reason to, as he suggested, sprinkle some no-treasure encounters in amongst the rest.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Yes!
Simply, yes.


Whelp, there's another channel in my subscription list.He is easily among the best musical artists on Youtube, and has the best rendition of Megalovania (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsDrWAXHTno) I've ever heard by a significant margin.

[Psyren]

He is easily among the best musical artists on Youtube, and has the best rendition of Megalovania I've ever heard by a significant margin.

I collect channels (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8edXOsNayao) like (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih20Tx-fNJs) that (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cwx2Q7Je1Y) so I'm always on the lookout for more :smallsmile:

[AvatarVecna]

30000 pennies it's licked up. That poor creature.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

30000 pennies it's licked up. That poor creature.That makes cents.

[GrayDeath]

Its obviously one of the incredibly rare Golden Furred "Enter Animal name", whose Fur/Fleece/etc is made from purest Gold. Problem solved.

[ShadeBlade0]

Thanks guys, all great advice! He ended up not even trying to loot the body. so onward and uproad the loot moves.

[Bronk]

Thanks guys, all great advice! He ended up not even trying to loot the body. so onward and uproad the loot moves.

I mean, if you didn't tell him there was anything on it, why would he? I would have looked for a den, but maybe he figured he was bad at tracking so why bother?

If there's a next time when you want to have loot on an animal, another idea would be an ex animal companion whose master died. They might be geared up, but they would have reverted to their normal animal status.

[Biggus]

I'm running a campaign where I'm focusing heavily on realism. There is an encounter with an animal (technically a magical beast, but it has very little intelligence). I obviously still want to provide loot for the encounter, but what are some justifications for doing so? Saying "You check this magic leopard's pockets and find 300gp." will ruin the immersion I'm going for.

Any ideas?

NPCs generally have more than twice the loot of a monster of the same CR, sprinkle a few of those in and they'll soon make them up to the expected WBL.


This could be a whole new use for the survival skill

One of my players has Survival and Profession: Hunter (I use a background skill system similar to the one in Pathfinder) and now the whole party are wandering round in fur coats and hats he's made them out of dire badgers and the like.

[Vaern]

Animals may not carry loot, but the half-eaten, half-rotten corpses of dead adventurers who did have loot may be sitting in some dark corner of the creature's lair.
Also, it's suggested in the DMG that if you throw a few of encounters at the party which don't grant loot then you can simply increase the amount of loot they get from the encounters where they do receive loot to keep them roughly on track with their expected WBL.